World Class Service: Exceeding Your Customers’ Expectations

AACRAO

April 1, 2012

• Background on the University of Minnesota

• Strategic plan for providing world class service

• Low cost ways to build customer service

• Our challenges and future projects

Presentation outline

University of Minnesota

Twin Cities campus • Located in the heart of the Minneapolis - St. Paul

metropolitan area

• Largest of the five campuses

• Made up of 17 colleges and professional schools

Student Enrollment

• Undergraduate 30,610

• Graduate 13,562

• Professional 3,625

• Non-degree 4,760

• Total: 52,557

Faculty and Staff 18,899

Organizational structure

President

Senior VP Academic Affairs & Provost

Vice Provost Undergraduate Education

Academic Support Resources (ASR)

One Stop Student Services

Office of Student Finance

Office of the

Registrar

Office of Classroom

Management

Continuity & Compliance

ASR-IT

Modes of service delivery

Customer Service

Web & Portal

E-mail

In-person

Phone

Outreach

One Stop’s Mission Statement:

To provide quality professional

service in the areas of enrollment,

financial aid, billing, and payments,

in support of students’ academic

and financial objectives.

Creating world class service

Customer service standards Measures of success Teamwork Hiring Training

#1

Teamwork

Create an environment

of inclusion

• Engage and involve your employees – Staff meeting updates (discuss hot topics)

– Empowering professional judgment (gift certificates)

– Give them leadership of a committee

– Peer recognition

– Hiring committees

• Support from management – Be available

– Follow-up on issues

Know your team

• To make them feel special you have to get

to know every person (ex.regular 1:1’s)

• Look at everyone’s individual strengths

(Strength’s Finders) – What similarities, differences, and gaps exist?

– How do you utilize those without defining people

solely on the inventory?

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EXECUTING INFLUENCING STRATEGIC THINKING RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

Theme Counts

The results of teamwork…

• Staff are: – happy to come to work

– eager to give you their energy, creativity, and loyalty

– more productivity and satisfaction

• Staff have a good impact on students through: – Outstanding service

– Genuine care and concern for students

– Consistent expertise

• Students show a more positive perspective about

your institution and their experience is improved.

Appreciation and recognition

•Schedule perks

•Shirts

•Retreats

•Celebrations

•Thank you cards

•Immediate acknowledgement

•What do they individually like

•Peer recognition

#2

Create quality customer

service standards

Positive themes from student surveys

• Patient, friendly, courteous, knowledgeable, and helpful

• Handled problems in a timely and professional manner

• Responded quickly to e-mails with thorough and relevant

information

• Offered good advice and encouragement - showed they care

• Made SURE answers are correct – if they didn’t know, found

someone who did

Continuous improvement

Themes from student surveys:

• Give accurate, consistent, and complete information to students

• Avoid bad mannerisms (i.e. frustrated tone of voice and actions)

• Maintain professionalism in all circumstances

• Know who handles what in departments - decrease the

‘bouncing back and forth’

• Anticipate questions and explain answers thoroughly - you know

more than the student

Taking service to the next level

Ongoing formal project:

• Created Quality Standards Development project team – Oct 2008

• Quality service project kick off with staff – Dec 2008

• Collected data on customer expectations – Jan-March 2008

• Set quality standards with staff – April 2008

• Define standards and measures of accountability – Sept 2009

One Stop service model Understanding our

customers: Do we know

the students, parents,

staff, and faculty for to

whom we provide

service?

Quality Standards: The

operating priorities that

ensure a consistent and

high-quality customer

service experience

Delivery Systems:

Staff, setting, process

Integration: the

alignment of all the

components, ensuring a

seamless customer

experience

Needs

Emotions

Stereotypes

Wants

(Approach taken from: Disney Approach to Quality Service)

satisfaction

helpful

peace of mind

courteous

guidance

confident

prepared

respect

simplicity

clarity

knowledgeable

accountability

friendliness

follow-up

personalized

control

relaxed

confidentiality

independence

concerned

consistency

happy

easy access

fun

certainty

ease

understanding

empathy

calming

accuracy

efficiency

accessibility

patience

supportive

up-to-date

appreciative

feel welcomed

responsible

convenience

timely

caring

One Stop customer expectation

word sort

Identified a word or phrase

that described

each of the groupings

and write that

word or phrase on

the corresponding line

below each box.

Which themes arise when looking at quality service?

Empathy • concerned

•understanding

• sympathetic

Knowledgeable

• responsible

• confident

• accurate

• accountable

Consistency • clarity

• accuracy

• prepared

• knowledgeable

One Stop quality standards:

words that embody the core of One Stop

• Knowledgeable – Professional, experienced, informed

• Empathetic – Understanding, sensitive, compassionate

• Friendly – Cheerful, approachable, kind, welcoming

• Efficient – Timely, accurate, well organized, resourceful

Bringing quality standards to life

Expectations

Action Related quality

standard

Convey a positive

attitude

Friendly

Do not assume Empathetic

Be comprehensive Efficient,

knowledgeable

Listen actively Empathetic

Requirements

Action Related quality

standard

State your name at the

beginning of a call

Friendly, convenient

Include an opening

sentiment in every e-mail

Friendly

Enter a comment after

every interaction

Convenient, accurate,

efficient

Check implications of all

three silos

Accurate, efficient,

knowledgeable, convenient

Ways to infuse the quality

standards in daily work life

• Training manual

• Any new or refresher training should have an

element that discusses how you will accomplish

the standards with this new knowledge.

• Display in your office

• Service monitoring

• Peer recognition

#3

Hire the right person for

your organization

Make your ‘staff’ your brand

No matter how good your services are, you

can’t achieve true excellence unless you

• Attract great staff

• Develop great staff

• Keep great staff

Define the perfect candidate

Personal Qualities

• Courteous

• Empathetic

• People oriented

• Take initiative

• Stay calm as they work on problems

• Communicate well

• Team players!

Define the perfect candidate

Skill set needed for service oriented person – Bachelor’s degree

– One year customer service experience

– Experience in registration/financial aid/student account receivable

– Public speaking

– University of Minnesota experience

– Previous college work/Lead worker experience

– PeopleSoft (Oracle)

– Strong communication skills

Resumes

• Neatness – application/resume

• Spelling and grammar – errors may be an indication

of laziness or a lack of education

• Organizational skills – was the resume organized

with the most important information first?

• Employee gaps – Watch for dates that only reflect

the year, not the month

Examples of interview questions

• What aspect of your work life do you feel passionate about?

• How do you define quality service to students and co-workers and

how would you as a One Stop Counselor provide it?

• What is your definition of teamwork? Give an example where you

felt you contributed effectively to a team.

• Tell me about a recent situation in which you had to deal with a

very upset customer or co-worker.

• When have you felt the greatest pressure to compromise your

personal integrity?

• What would you be looking forward to in this position?

#4

Design an effective training

program for new and

existing staff

Training program process

• Formal training on student life-cycle

• Testing knowledge after each stage of life-cycle

– Role playing

– Real student scenarios

– Asking other staff questions

• Mentorship and shadowing

• Completion party!

• Continuous refresher training

Prepare staff for the unexpected

• Anticipate every possible scenario

• Train for the ordinary tasks

• Prepare staff for unusual situations

• Create talking-points

Evaluation

• Formal evaluation of training knowledge

• Evaluation of training program

• Informal training evaluation from trainers,

mentors and other staff members

• Call monitoring evaluation

• Comment queries

• E-mail spot checks

#5

Analyze your measures

of success

Measures of success

• Point of Service Comment Cards

• Annual Student Survey

• Quantity/quality of compliments

• Web usability testing

• One Stop website comments link

• Annual Student Veteran Survey

• Bi-annual Internal Customer Survey

• Phone, email, and comment monitoring

One Stop organizational

productivity measures

• Wait time in phone queue

• Wait time for walk-in customers

• Turn around time for email inquiries

• Transaction speed and volume

• Timeliness and accuracy of fax and mail requests

• Number of transactions per staff

Student reactions

• “Excellent service, not only did you take care of the

problem, you took care of me as well.”

• “The staff here are great, pleasant and go the extra mile.”

• “You say “no” in such a nice and informative way.”

• “One Stop is terrific! I’ve never seen anything like it! You

all know so much. How do you do it? You must be in

training all of the time! You guys should run the federal

government.”

• “You could give some stores a few lessons on service.”

Continuous improvement of high

quality service

• Be aware of fluctuating needs of students

• Streamline procedures and services

• Analyze past practices & eliminate

inefficiencies

• Improve the content and timing of e-mail

messages and letters

Strategic Planning

• Creating values

• Keep with the knowledge of all available

resources

• Staff utilization and creating equal workloads

• Office adjustments during busy time

• Clear problem escalation paths

Low cost ways to build customer service

• Web resources

• Publications

• Webinars

• Social media

• Greeters during busy time

• Track every interaction

• Recognize staff when you see something

immediately so it reinforces repetition

• Refresher training on soft skills w/ role playing

Our challenges and future projects

• Dealing with difficult customers

• Proactive vs. reactive work with students

• Coaching staff

• Staff recognition

• Social media

• Mobile

• CRM

• Keep the quality standards on the top of mind

Julie Selander Interim Director

goode021@umn.edu

612-625-6579

Carrie Otto Assistant Director

zast0020@umn.edu

612-625-6051

onestop.umn.edu

Contact information